Here’s an oldie but goodie, which I used during my freshman year of college:
It was made by the Vernon McMillan company, based in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The “Memo Book” typography is pretty cool… and check out that snazzy, wave-like VM logo! I love the mottled orange cover– I don’t know if there’s a name for this kind of cardboard, but you used to see it used a lot more for the covers of notebooks and looseleaf binders. It doesn’t seem to be as common nowadays, but I think someone needs to bring it back into favor!

The back is a nice plain cardboard, quite thick.

One thing I love about this notebook is the ratio of the thickness of the paper to the diameter of the wire spiral. I really hate it when spirals stick way out beyond the paper, but this one is nice and tight.

The spiral is in surprisingly good shape considering that this knocked around in my bag for quite a while. I guess I’m so fond of notebooks that I unconsciously take good care of them.

As always, I find random things jotted down on pages. I’ve yet to answer the question below:

I must have started this notebook right at the beginning of the school year, as I was writing down course materials I had to buy and notes about classes.

There were also a lot of notes about how much money I had and was spending, homework assignments, and other random anxieties of a college student, plus several pages that a friend scribbled all over when one of my roommates let her into my room to wait for me while I was out. At the time I was rather annoyed that she’d wasted all these pages of my nice notebook, but it’s a funny thing to look back at now.

I never use spiral notebooks like this any more, but I do love looking at all the old ones I’ve saved. You just can’t buy them like this any more…

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2 Responses to “Mid-1980s Vernon McMillan Notebook”

Thanks for posting this. I love these old cardboard cover notebooks and I have found an old corner store that sells old stock JoRedCo notebooks also made in Elizabeth NJ. I bought the last four this week. I love them not just for the covers but the paper is great. Any fountain pen I use doesn’t bleed through, even ones with a thick wet line. And the paper is not too thick like Clairefontaines. Somehow it absorbs the ink and doesn’t bleed. They don’t make em like that anymore.